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Deeplinks

The House Judiciary Committee has recessed its meeting to "mark-up" Chairman Conyers' PATRIOT renewal and reform bill, the USA Patriot Amendments Act of 2009 (HR 3845), so that the committee members can attend a vote on the House floor. We don't know when they'll be back — we'll try to tweet via @EFF if and when they do return — but in the meantime, here are the major developments that you missed if you weren't watching the live webcast. Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute also has a great blow-by-blow with characteristic snark via @Normative.

In a Court filing late Friday night, the Obama Administration attempted to dress up in new clothes its embrace of one of the worst Bush Administration positions — that courts cannot be allowed to review the National Security Agency's massive, well-documented program of warrantless surveillance. In doing so it demonstrated that it will not willingly set limits on its own power and reinforced the need for Congress to step in and reform the so-called 'state secrets' privilege. The House Judiciary Committee will be taking the first step toward such reform when it begins to consider the State Secret Protection Act of 2009 (HR 984) this Wednesday, so please visit our action center now to voice your support!

Last week, two new district court opinions took opposing views on the question of whether the Fourth Amendment protects stored email. One of the cases easily adopted the prevailing view that the Constitution protects electronic communications, while the other ignored existing U.S. Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit precedent to find consumers have no expectation of privacy in messages stored with third parties. EFF will be watching these developments closely as we continue to press for email privacy rights in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in U.S. v. Warshak and in other matters.

Digital Video Recorders, once considered a mortal threat by the entertainment industry, have now become its new best friend. It's just the latest example of how the industry's constant warnings of the dangers of "piracy" frequently turn out to be baseless hysteria.

Remember 2001? Digital Video Recorders ("DVRs") like TiVo and ReplayTV were poised to win mainstream adoption, allowing consumers to fast-forward past advertisements more easily than before. In response, the entertainment industry behaved predictably — it freaked out and filed a bunch of lawsuits.

Texas Instruments (TI) ultimately failed to stand behind their misguided claim that calculator hobbyists violated copyright law by having public, online discussions about techniques to get more functionality from TI calculators. Yet the company continues to dig itself into new holes by issuing more improper take-down letters.